Return to Sender
by LehcarAllyson
Summary: The NCIS team receives a video from Ziva with a scary message. Will they ever get to see her again? Set in season 12, with Gibbs father/daughter and Tiva.


So, this is my first NCIS fanfiction. I admit that I haven't watched the show lately, because of Ziva leaving, so this is my way to fix that problem. I don't have much Ellie Bishop in my story because I really don't know her personality since I haven't watched the show with her in it, but she is present in my story. This is a lot of father daughter for Gibbs and Ziva, and of course some TIVA. I don't own any of these characters. On another note, I know that Cote de Pablo was listed as 35 and born in 1979, but the NCIS database lists Ziva as being born in 1982, so I am using that number. That would mean that she was 23 in 2005 when she came on the show, and currently 32. Also, I pretty much ignored time zones. Sorry.

Gibbs cursed under his breath as a car driven by a dark haired woman completely cut him off. After doing so, she gunned her car about 30 over the speed limit and dropped out of sight. Without him wanting it to, his mind flashed to Ziva. He would like to be able to say that he hadn't thought about her since her tearful phone call when she poured out her heart, but he had. He understood why she left. He didn't know half the things she had done in the name of Mossad and he wasn't sure he wanted to. He thought about when she had told him about Saleem after Malachi left.

_I killed the courier….and his gunman…after I forced them to take me to Saleem's camp. I fought my way through his defenses; I got within a fingernail of Saleem before I was…overpowered._

"After she had taken out the entire crew of the Damocles" he added to himself. He would have thought that he would understand how Mossad worked after so long, but sending in one person to execute an entire camp…even if the original four man team would have been sent in it still would have been a suicide mission. The night that she had told him about it he had been unable to sleep, imagining all the other similar missions that Ziva had completed in her lifetime. Yes, he could understand why she wanted to put down the badge.

"But that doesn't change the fact that I miss her…" he whispered out loud as he pulled into the NCIS parking lot. And it certainly didn't make DiNozzo miss her any less either. His cell rang, and he expected it to be Leon telling him they had a dead marine, or a dead petty officer, but it wasn't. It was Leon, sounding strained, telling him to come to MTAC as soon as he came in.

He saw Tony lying on the floor under Mcgee's desk, singing Frank Sinatra. Mcgee was laughing, and Bishop was kicking him. Gibbs stopped and could only stare at the situation. Immediately, they all froze. Mcgee's face got red, and DiNozzo jumped up and tried to straighten his jacket.

"Boss! I was just demonstrating that…"

"Don't wanna hear it DiNozzo."

"Do we have a case…"

Gibbs didn't bother responding as he took the stairs two at a time. Vance was already in a chair. "What's this about Leon?"

"We received a video this morning from the director of Mossad. She said that she had made a promise to send it to us."

"Did you watch it?"

The look on his face told Gibbs that he had, and his stomach dropped. Hearing anything about Mossad took him right back to his thoughts of Ziva, and obviously that was what the video was about. His fears were answered when Ziva appeared on the screen. All things aside, it was nice to see her. She looked beautiful, like always. He had always laughed at DiNozzo's attempts to admire her discreetly when she was wearing a dress. Leon started the video, and Gibbs heard her accented voice for the first time in over a year.

"I know that this is not how I ever imagined a reunion would be, but I was not sure what else to do. I meant everything I said when I left NCIS. I made a clean break, because I honestly thought that that would be easier on everybody, including me. I miss all of you, all the time, but I still know that I made the right decision in putting the badge down. I would have hesitated the next time I had to kill someone, and that might have put one of you in danger. I was considering coming to DC to visit, but I know that you all moved on and that that might make things worse.

Ziva swallowed and took another breath, and continued. "Orli came to see me. I had been naïve enough to think that I was hidden from Mossad, but I should have known better. She told me that they needed my help, and I laughed because I thought she was pushing my leg. But she was not. She told me that they only needed me for one mission and one mission only." Gibbs's felt another flash of pain rip through him when she misused the idiom. Her accent was thicker too.

I had a good friend once here, named Adira. Adira was in my training class at Mossad, and became an assassin as well. She saved my life when I was 18 years old, and hesitated in killing a man. She finished the job, and saved me from being shot. If she had not gotten there and done so, I would have never met any of you, and I would have lived and died a killer. Two years later I had the chance to repay the favor, and I failed. She was in trouble on a mission and I did not get there in time and she was shot, and almost died. She had to spend two years at a desk because of it. I always had a lot of guilt over it, but I did not think that I could ever fix my mistake. Now I can.

She was chasing intel about a man named Aazar Hussan. I know him. He worked for Saleem. He abandoned the camp a week before you arrived, but I…..I had a lot of contact with him." She was struggling to find words. "He was Saleem's best at….questioning. Because of that, he was permitted to have his way with me when the others were asleep." She looked like she was in physical pain as she remembered, and Gibbs again felt the guilt. He had always suspected rape, but he had never asked, and he had never wanted to know. Because he hadn't forced her to get back on their plane she had been tortured for three months. That was all on him.

"Anyways, Hussan has her. He had had her for two weeks, and Mossad cannot find them. They are looking at least." Gibbs knew the slight bitterness in her tone was because of the months that Mossad hadn't looked for her. "He contacted them and said that he would be willing to make a trade, Adira for me, and I agreed to it. I am not planning on giving up. I will wait until Adira is safe, and then I have a chance of getting away. I know that it is probably a suicide mission, and I am fine with that. I know that this is what I am meant to do."

"The reason I made this video was so you would know. I did not want you to go on with the rest of your life thinking that I never tried to talk to you again. I did not want you to catch wind that I was killed on a Mossad mission, because I did not want you to think that I rejoined Mossad after I left NCIS. This video will be sent to you after Mossad hears that I am dead, or when I come back alive. I highly doubt that I will come back alive, but if I do, I would like to talk to you. If you want to, call me at 816-555-7098. I might not answer, but if I do not, I am probably dead. If that happens, I just want all of you to know that you are my family, and I love you, and I am sorry for any pain I might have caused you."

The video ended, and Gibbs didn't move. He was hearing her words over and over in his head, and he hated Mossad more than he ever had before. He dug out his cell and called the number that she had listed, and heard only a dial tone. He threw the phone across the room, heart pounding.

"They need to see it." Leon nodded and started making calls. Gibbs left the room, and passed a confused Tony. "What's going on Boss? Director Vance said something about Ziva?"

Gibbs nodded, and Tony, Mcgee, and Bishop continued up the steps. Abby, Ducky, and Palmer were getting off the elevator. Gibbs knew that he should go with them, but he couldn't watch that video a second time.

Tony stared blankly at the screen, his mind going back to 2009 when he heard that the Damocles had went down with no survivors. He knew that by the way Gibbs was acting and the phone lying in the corner of MTAC that he had already tried to call her. Next to him, Bishop out her hand on his shoulder, not feeling the grief like the rest of the room was, but feeling pain for them. Abby tried to be positive.

"Well, she said that there's a chance that she would make it out. And….and if she did, she wants to come and see us! That's a good thing! And maybe…"

"Abby, she's not coming back." Tony was disgusted that his voice was getting hoarse and his eyes were watering. He stormed out of MTAC and flew into the men's room, slamming the door behind him. He fell to the floor and mourned, for the woman he loved and for the life they would never have. He wouldn't even care if she had come back and wanted nothing to do with him. At least she would be alive.

He was cut from his thoughts as his phone rang, and he almost didn't answer. He didn't want to talk to Mcgee, or Gibbs, or whoever it was. He wanted to be alone. But when he saw the number on his screen, he jumped up, feeling a flutter of hope pass through him. The number looked familiar. It was the number from the video.

"Hello?"

"Tony?"

With that word, his world was righted again, and he wanted to dance in circles and laugh. "Ziva!"

"I saw that Gibbs had called me, but I was outside. I tried to call him back but it would not go through. Why did he call me?"

"We got your video. And Gibbs threw his phone."

"You just got it? You were supposed to get it when I got back. I got back two months ago. I thought that you had chosen not to call me." Tony heard the old hurt in her voice, and he imagined her waiting day and night for a call that never came.

"Why didn't you call us?"

"I did not want to bother you if you did not want to be bothered.

"Ziva, you scared us. Wait! I have to tell them that you're calling. I'm in the bathroom." He ran out and ran to the desks where everyone was sitting and discussing what to do, and trying to fly to Israel for a funeral, when they saw Tony barreling in grinning ear to ear.

"Ziva's on the phone!"

There was clamoring and laughing and hugging. Tony pulled the phone from his ear and covered the speaker and explained, "She got back two months ago. She doesn't know why Orli waited to send the video. She didn't call us because she thought that we got the video and didn't want to talk to her."

"Put her on speaker." This was Gibbs. When Tony did, and laid the phone down, he said "Hey Ziver."

"Hello Gibbs." At the sound of her voice, Abby squealed and grabbed the phone and started talking a mile a minute. Gibbs took it back.

"Where are you?"

"My home. I was outside when you called Gibbs, I am sorry. I could bring you a new phone." Her voice was teasing and light, and Gibbs smiled. "Don't worry about it Ziver. When are you coming to DC?"

"You want me to come?"

"Of course. I would prefer you come to stay. And no, I'm not asking you to be back on the team. Just back to us."

"I can leave tonight if you like." Abby squealed again, and Gibbs said "There's your answer."

They were in high spirits. Abby made a banner that said "Welcome back Ziva" on it, and they all went home for the night smiling. Gibbs and Tony were both thinking that Ziva would stay with them, so both men set up in their homes. Ziva was getting on the plane.

When she walked into the squad room with her visitor badge, she was bombarded by Abby who was hugging her, and the others gathering around, all talking at once. Tony wasn't talking, and the two kept making eye contact and looking away from each other. When Abby hugged her again, more aggressively, she stumbled, and Gibbs had to support her and keep her from falling.

"Whoa Ziver, don't fall."

Ziva was quiet and looking at their expectant faces, and knew that she had to tell them.

"There's another reason why I could never come back to the team."

Their faces looked confused, and waited for to her to elaborate. In response, she lifted up the leg of her cargo pants to show a prosthetic leg. They looked horrified.

"Ziva, what happened?" Ducky looked concerned as he inspected the prosthetic.

"Can I sit down first?"

There was a rush of activity as Bishop pulled out her desk chair and Tony and Gibbs were practically carrying her to it.

"Well, I went after Hassan. I made the trade. I knew that he was going to do what he had done in Somalia to me a second time, but I would rather die 10 times, so I ran as soon as the helicopter with Adira was in the air. There was a fire fight, and I came out on top. I had to kill them, and they will be the last ones I will ever kill. In the process one managed to shoot me. They did not have a phone so I had to get four miles to the nearest house and call Mossad. By that time it was infected and when I got back to a hospital they had to take it off at the knee. But it is alright. It has been two months, and I can walk and run on it for periods of time. I did not want to tell you on the phone."

"Of course not dear." Ducky pulled her pants leg back down, and the festive atmosphere continued. After a few hours, Gibbs stepped in. "Ziva, do you want to rest? You can stay with me if you want to."

"I want her to stay with me, boss." These were the first words that Tony had spoken, and he and Gibbs stared at each other, and Gibbs nodded. "That's fine.

In the car, they were quiet again. Tony kept looking at Ziva, and opening his mouth, and closing it again. Finally, Ziva spoke for him.

"I thought about you every day since I left. I should not have let you get on that plane. Not without telling you how I felt about you. How I feel."

"And how do you feel Ziva?"

"I love you Tony. And that is not going to change. If you want, I will stay here, with you. As long as I can visit Israel sometimes."

In response, Tony pulled off the road, and threw the car into park. Before Ziva could react, he was kissing her. When they pulled apart, they were smiling.

"Of course I want you. You can stay with me, you could stay in another apartment, we could get married, I don't really care at this point. You can work, you can stay home and have babies, I don't care. I just want you."

3 days later

Tony walked into the building whistling, floating on a cloud like he had been since Ziva returned. He froze when he saw Ziva herself coming out of the director's office.

"What are you doing here?"

"Getting interviewed." Her eyes were shining. "I wanted to wait and see what the director would say before I told you. But I am going to work here, and train new agents in the shooting range. I'm going to be Agent David again."

"That's great Z!" He swept her off her feet and spun her around. "Did you tell anybody yet?"

"No, just you. Do you think it is a good idea?"

"I think it's the best idea. We can come to work together, and you can see everyone anytime you want, and you could probably even give us ideas if you wanted on cases, and you can scare all the probies with your ninja shooting skills. It's perfect."

"I want to tell everyone." She ran off, in her now normal gait with a slight limp. Tony was already used to it. He saw Gibbs grin and hug her, rocking her back and forth like he did when he was being soft. His mind flashed to the ring sitting in its tiny box that he had hidden in one of the floorboards. They were going on a date that Saturday to her favorite restaurant. He had already given her necklace back. Hopefully she would accept more jewelry from him.

And of course she did.

That's all! I hope you liked it, and I hope I did the show justice. Please review and tell me what you think!


End file.
